Anyone ever planted milkweed?

[DirtyBird]

Since I'm not having much luck (or don't know exactly what I'm looking for is more like it) finding any in my part of Mississippi, I'm going to try planting some.

https://www.nativnurseries.com/p-189-bu ... rsosa.aspx

Curious if anyone has tried it before and had any tips or pointers?

[medicsnoke]

My wife is a teacher and the students at her school plant it in a polinater garden. They start the plants in a planter flats overy the winter in a green house and then mid summer transplant it. I've been mowing around it for a few years at my farm and have bunches of it now.

[Bonecrusher101]

It's scarce around here in tn. I have tried planting some from seeds from other beast but I failed at getting the seeds to germinate. I found a few native milkweed plants and have them transplanted in a planter at my house for a year and a half. They are growing but might not be mature enough to reproduce yet, so still no seed pods.

I'm gonna keep messing with growing some but your best bet is to befriend a fellow beast north of the mason Dixon to send you some!

[IkemanTx]

Milkweed seeds need to "stratify", this is a certain period of cold and humid exposure required to start germination. This process is found in lots of varieties of seeds, from acorns and chestnuts all the way down to browse species. I am not familiar with the length of stratification required for the various types of milkweed, but the lack of stratification may be cause for some failures. What you could do is find some local, wild milkweed. Plant the seeds in pots right when you get home and leave the pots out over winter. The local seeds should perform well when stratified in the same climate the parent plant came from.

[headgear]

I've been throwing seeds in my yard for years, they are absolutely everywhere now. You would think the butterflies would be all over the place but no sign of them.

[brancher147]

I've been throwing seeds in my yard for years, they are absolutely everywhere now. You would think the butterflies would be all over the place but no sign of them.

Wow. It's hard to find milkweed in WV that is not covered in butterflies. I have been throwing seed out in our meadow to try and get some more going for pollinators with no success but we have wild milkweed everywhere.

I would suggest getting seed that is ready to plant and starting indoors. Broadcasting seed outdoors has not worked for me.

[DirtyBird]

After reading some of your suggestions, I'm going to try planting some in planters & see what happens.

[Mschmeiske]

It's not hard to find it where I'm from (NY) so no need to try.

[Motivated]

It grows well in Indiana too. I tossed some seeds in the strawberry patch last year, and it grew well. Good companion plant here as the strawberries are done producing early before the milkweed grows tall and shades them.

[Rich M]

The serious gardeners plant them. Different milkweed species grow better in different areas.

Examples - I'm in FL. We have native milkweed and I saw some in a hunt area when scouting. It is a 2 to 3-inch little smooth skinned "horn", skinny and pointy. Has milkweed seeds in there but doesn't look like the stuff you northern guys have.

[Whitetailaddict]

Thanks for sharing this. Never thought of trying to plant milkweed as I've always just went to find some but have had difficulties in some areas.

[SMS79]

...to befriend a fellow beast north of the mason Dixon to send you some!

I've been looking out for it all over GA and similar story down here...can't find it growing wild anywhere. My mother-in-law is a school teacher and she gave me some of her leftover seeds from planting for her students (butterfly project). We've had some good success growing the plants as we have about a dozen of them growing in pots on our back porch. They're currently 1-2' tall. I tried transplanting one to the ground fairly early on and that one is doing pretty well too...about like the others. I realized about mid-summer that, tho they're successfully growing, they're not going to produce any pods in time for hunting season so I followed the advice above and got a generous beast member to send me some pods. I'm going to try planting the seeds from these pods as well b/c I think they're a different variety of milkweed than what I've got growing. We'll see which does better in the long run. Fun little side project, and my wife likes gardening so she doesn't mind much.

[ThePreBanMan]

I tried but the seeds never germinated.

[ThePreBanMan]

Milkweed seeds need to "stratify", this is a certain period of cold and humid exposure required to start germination. This process is found in lots of varieties of seeds, from acorns and chestnuts all the way down to browse species. I am not familiar with the length of stratification required for the various types of milkweed, but the lack of stratification may be cause for some failures. What you could do is find some local, wild milkweed. Plant the seeds in pots right when you get home and leave the pots out over winter. The local seeds should perform well when stratified in the same climate the parent plant came from.

interesting...... thanks for that.

[goldtip5575]

Going to plant some next year as a part of the CRP agreement for monarch butterfly habitat.